Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Mountain Lions in Texas ... evidence ?

I disagree. MUCH escapes a game camera. You said so yourself that you've done long term studies and only captured mountain lions twice. Not saying there's anything wrong with how you're doing it. Just saying that I think we as humans have come to rely too heavily on electronic devices and assume we'd know everything there is to know about our world around us. We also listen (maybe not those on this board) to much to the so called "authorities" when it comes to these matters.

There have been numerous discoveries of new species in the last couple decades. And I'm not talking about microscopic crap on the sea floor. Talking about large animals. Not only new species, but finding known species in areas we thought they were eradicated from.

We just don't know everything. And I suspect, things are much different than what we perceive.

Yes I have only caught mountain lions twice but mountain lions in East, TX are pretty darn rare and I'm only one person. TXPWD has only a record of a handful being killed (they are open season in TX) in the last few decades in this part of the world and upland pineywoods aren't exactly great mountain lion habitat. In that time I have gotten several bears which aren't even officially a species found in East, TX.

Most of the study areas are large tracts (for around here anyway) of 10,000 acres or more because we were tagging sites for possible bear reintroduction (cooming soon).

Nathan, I hunt Polk Co. some. Do you mind relating what co. you got the bear pics in? Thanks, eye.

Upshur, Red river, San Augustine, Shelby (also got a mountain lion here covering a deer kill) and Newton County.

I'm about 110% certain all of them were young males that came out of Arkansas.

East, TX is still in the exploraty stage for a black bear reintroduction program. Right now if you hang around public land in East, TX you'll start seeing the signs informing hunters/hikers about the possibility of bears and not to confuse them with a hog (I know funny, but hog hunting with dogs is popular and people shoot at the brush a lot).

If I had to bet the big thicket would probably get picked first with boggy slough being second as a release site.

35 years ago while fishing on piney creek in polk co. I saw a tree with the lower bark stripped with claw marks and I could think of nothing else doing it.

About 12 years ago one showed up at Crane Texas, and that is desert country.

I have a rancher pt. that has seen one on his place just north of Big Bend.

one was killed in duval county 10 yrs ago, guy got fined big time.

Wild jaguars do have some black individuals, none in the wild north of Central America (from memory, could be further south than that)

Black ones are bred for in captive populations, so more common there.

Quick google or wikipedia should turn up the line of northernmost wild black jaguars, it's pretty far south.

Sycamore

I grew up hearing stories from my dad and grandad about lion sightings here in Bastrop county.

Back, I'm guessing in the 70s, they had the place leased to a deer hunter. He was sitting in a stand watching a good sized field when two of then walked out. He shot and wounded one and they both ran off. My dad had some cow dogs at the time and put them on the trail but they never were able to find the wounded cat.

A story my grandpaw told happened one night when him and several buddies were coon hunting. They were walking along in the dark with no flashlights when a big cat jumped out of the tree they had just walked under and ran away in the dark. He said it scared one of them so bad that he sat down and started crying.

In the winter of 2009 I had my own sighting. It was probably 10 o'clock at night and I was driving my four wheeler down a back ranch road spotlighting for varmints. I see what at first I think is a coyote moving through some tall weeds, but something is strange about it. It is not trotting like a coyote, it is slinking like a cat. I stop the atv and start lip squeaking trying to make it stop but it doesn't. It moves behind a tree so I drive a little closer to get a clear view around the tree. There about 80 yards away in an opening, sitting down looking at me, is a sure enough mountain lion. I can distinctly remember seeing it's dark face markings. I drew down on it, put the cross hairs right on its shoulder and fired. At the shot it jumped strait up in the air several feet, kicked its back legs out like a deer would and disappeared. Unbeknownst to me at the time my .223's scope was knocked off and was shooting several inches too high. I know I hit him but am sure it was a grazing shot. I never found a blood trail and about 15 minutes after the shot it started to rain vary hard. I came back the next day and searched but it was no use.

Why was he fined?

I saw a Big Tom brown in color three years ago in Live Oak County near Choke Canyon on the way into the deer lease. I had the sons with me but not a camera other than the cell phone. I told the sons that they were seeing something they may never see again in Texas. I had never previously saw anything other than bobcats before. We may have seen a jaguarrundi as well, at least we think that is what it is because it was very dark in color with a tail about bobcat in size. Two different areas same lease on different weekends so maybe or maybe not the same one.

I think he is talking about a black bear.

Off topic but this was a vehicle kill near Big Bend.

pira114
I have seen one wolf personaly, hunting partner two, in Tulare County, Kings Canyon basin. Fish and game won't admit it publicly. A sow brown bear has been spotted above California Hot Springs in the Portugese Pass area with cubs.
As to the big cats, We saw a very dark cat on a hillside one evening coming home, but it could be as others have said with the lighting, fifteen to twenty minutes before sundown?
I do know there are animals out there that "officials" denie.

I believe you are correct. I didn't pay enough attention. That makes sense.

I'm in Tuolumne county. For a while, they were trying to reintroduce brown bear into parts of this county. Right behind Yosemite. Don't for the life of me know why. Anyway, they claim none of it worked and stopped trying. Now they are trying hard NOT to answer questions about why people are starting to see brown bears in the high sierras. Same thing with wolves. I see their tracks very infrequently at around 7000 ft or better. Never lower, but then I ain't looking lower.

Speaking of which, it's that time of year. The black bears are getting adventurous in the quest for dinner. Starting to see sign around the house.

As for black cats, I've been reading a lot since this thread started. I wonder if mt. lions can have a recessive black fur trait??? Aside from mis-identifying the color at dawn or dusk, I think that could be a plausible explanation as to why they're seen occasionally, but not captured or killed.

I know how the shadow affect can make a deer look very black and the same thing happens with many mountain lion sightings,but some of those sighting can very well be jaguars.Years ago they roamed Texas,in fact,years ago South Texas was not the brush country it is today,it was open prairie.With the whitetail and hog populations we have today,they certainly would find the habitat better than ever.One cat I saw looked black,not just black,but shiny black and the head was big.I never claimed I saw a jaguar,but in my mind,I'm not going to rule it out either.Here are a few of links about jaguars in Texas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuMmS4NBE9s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EHq-eEby4-c

http://www.valleymorningstar.com/articles/jaguar-29121-last-texas.html

http://www.wtblock.com/wtblockjr/black.htm

Our ranch in N. Texas is on the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River.
My Dad, a Rancher of over 60 years has seen 3 mountain lions, all tan, in his lifetime.
I saw my first mountain lion last year here on our ranch, & I'm 53. I was bowhunting & had 3 does under my stand. They got real nervous acting, & I figured surely a big buck was coming in.... The biggest doe snorted, & they all 3 hauled ass. I look up & a female cat stalked in about 20 yards from my blind. She probably weighed about 100lbs. No, I didn't shoot her. Probably should have. But it sure was fun watching her stalk by. She never made a sound & neither did I.
Maybe I'll be lucky enough to see her again this deer season.

Back in '87 or thereabouts a friend saw one cross the narrow dirt road leading to the property I was living on at the time. This was just south of College Station in Brazos County, in a location now gone under to suburban development.

Here in San Antonio, lions have been present for as long as I can remember on Camp Bullis, a 28,000 acre Military training area in the northern part of Bexar County, now pretty much surrounded by upscale housing developments, presence documented in the form of deer kills found and sightings.

Within the city limits is a park on the far north side of town, there is a three mile loop trail over rough terrain that I often take my dogs walking at night. In the last ten years I have heard what I preseumed were lions there twice.

Once a deep throaty cat growl perhaps twenty yards away up a hillside in thick cedar, repeated a few minute later further off along the slope. Went in the next day to find a sapling Spanish oak torn out of the ground, bark ripped by claws, leaf litter all disturbed and a strong odor of cat.

Same park, just two years back, a deer bleating and sound of a scuffle in the cedar maybe fifty or sixty yards off, the bleating suddenly cut off. The very next day the park was closed for perhaps ten days as a result of a mountain lion sighting.

Both times my two heelers were alert and listening, but did not bark or attempt to chase, I often have 'em out in the woods or brush and they know not to respond to critters we run into unless I tell 'em its OK.

Birdwatcher

Sounds like very well trained dogs there Birdy. Usually they're wanting out of the area, yesterday.

The fact that they deny what people know to be there sure undercuts the trust one can put in them, doesn't it.

Never understood that. Just dumb.

There's been enough reports for so many years of "black panthers" without a carcass to prove it that IMO there are only 2 possible explanations. Jaguar or lighting that makes a regular ML look black.

No jag's up here but always the occasional report of black cougar sighting. A cousin of mine farms/ranches not far from here and witnessed a pair 3 days in a row that he says looked black. He watched for a couple minutes each time and one sighting for several minutes. All near sundown and all from his barn looking west into the pasture near wooded bottom about 400 yards away. He watched as they cross a fence one evening, which gave a good estimation of the size. Definitely lions. Appear black because of the angle of the lighting.


This would most probably be a form of melanism.
Unlike albinism, as far as I know, it's a dominant trait. If that's the case the frequency should be like solid black jaguars, 1/3 or even fully 1/2 the population.
It's got to be the lighting.

They also continue to deny the existence of Big Foot too.




Reread your pop-gen books, you are missing a little detail or three.